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Non-marine arthropod traces from the subaerial Ordovician Borrowdale Volcanic Group, English Lake District

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

E. W. Johnson
Affiliation:
British Geological Survey, Windsor Court, Windsor Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HB, UK
D. E. G. Briggs
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Bristol, Queen's Road, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
R. J. Suthren
Affiliation:
Geology and Cartography Division, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
J. L. Wright
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Bristol, Queen's Road, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
S. P. Tunnicliff
Affiliation:
Biostratigraphy Group, British Geological Survey, Nicker Hill, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK

Abstract

Arthropod trace fossils are described from the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, a sequence otherwise devoid of faunal evidence. Two forms, both made by the same probably myriapod-like organism, are assigned to the ichnogenera Diplichnites and Diplopodichnus. The lithologies preserving the trace fossils are non-marine and may have been deposited in a freshwater lacustrine environment; some of the traces were probably made in temporarily emergent conditions. The change from one form of trace to the other reflects drying out of the substrate. The trace fossils probably record some of the earliest freshwater arthropods, before the widespread colonization of land by the group.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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